


Tell me

by sternflammenden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:58:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternflammenden/pseuds/sternflammenden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for LJ's asoiafkinkmeme. </p>
<p>Prompt:  She might be lifeless during intercourse. But she gets herself off listening to him speak of how he has flayed people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell me

She lies on her back, eyes open. Bethany enjoys watching her husband when he fucks her, the barely imperceptible flush that comes to his normally pale face, the way that his eyes lock with hers, boring into her, daring her to break her gaze, to defer. It isn’t maidenly or even wifely to take such interest in matters of the flesh, but such things have never bothered her before. And her interest may be clinical, but it’s a way to amuse herself, to fill the moment between gestures, to distract her mind as they attempt to make an heir. Perhaps one day she may even feel something aside from a vague affection for the man who straddles her body, aside from the reverence that she bears his house and its weighty history. 

Her sister would think of their coupling as mechanical, but Bethany enjoys the routine. She is not pleased or even aroused by Roose’s cold affections, but she does not find his touch unpleasant. On the contrary, it pleases her. It pleases her that this harsh lord, so newly raised by his father’s death, whose mere glance is enough to cause lesser men to quail in their boots, has chosen her, has taken her into his bed and trusted her to mingle her blood with his, the blood of the First Men, cold and harsh in his veins, to continue his line. She smiles, biting her lip with sharp teeth, determined not to mar the exercise with a reaction. Her face is glass, all ice, except for her large dark eyes that stare, and her red mouth that twists with the effort, betraying her. 

He finishes and she presses thighs together when Roose withdraws from her, watching his every move, noticing with a strange pleasure the signs of his undoing, a wayward strand of hair that falls over his forehead, and a bruise on his shoulder. It is not of her doing. It is the first time that she has noticed any marring of his flesh, and it stirs her curiosity. Bethany is not concerned; Roose is far too self-sufficient to suffer a wife’s mothering, but she speaks anyway, tracing the purpling with a finger. 

“Where did that come from?” 

Roose starts at the sound of her voice; although it is mannered and controlled, it is still strangely loud in the quiet of her chamber. He brushes her hand aside, pinning fingers together in a bunch in his fist.

“It is none of your concern, wife.” 

Bethany’s lips quirk at his words. “And how is it not?” She frowns. “Do you lie with another?” She knows that she is not the first, treasures with a cold superiority the memory of a failing, wan girl, the first he’d taken to wife, much to the rage of her father, seeing the creature from the Vale as a snub against their family. Were Northern girls not good enough for Lord Bolton? But the shade does not trouble Bethany as it still nags at Rodrik Ryswell, for she is dust, and Bethany is flesh. And then there is the peasant, the miller’s wife, who flaunts herself with her bastard child in the village on the outskirts of Bolton lands. Bethany knows of her as well, and the heat that had burned her cheeks had chilled long ago. They were beneath her notice. After all, they were all in rags and shrouds and she was wrapped in fine pink silks.

“There is no one,” Roose says then, bringing her hand to her side and releasing her from his grasp. “It was necessary.” 

“Necessary?” She traces the mark, a faint purple staining his otherwise pallid body, nails grazing the injury. It never occurs to her to comfort or to fuss, but to pry and to probe. 

“He had broken into the stables,” Roose says and Bethany knows that she is trapped now, that any sort of chastisement that she brings will falter in her throat, for those are _her_ domain, the only part of her girlhood that she had permitted herself when she became Lady Bolton, her father’s horseflesh, now hers. She frowns.

“He attempted to bespoil what was mine, and required punishment.” 

“I am glad then,” she says, a smile on her lips, but her voice is hard. “Tell me of it then.” 

“I would not wish to anger you,” he replies, “it would do you no good service, wife, nor the child,” he says, fingers brushing her abdomen, “if there is to be a child.” 

“I shall remain calm,” Bethany says, knowing it to be a lie, but knowing too how well she is at concealing her true thoughts from this man, at pleasing and complementing his silent ways. 

“He was brought before me before he was able to do much,” Roose said, “nothing more than a mere groom, but it was still an insult. He was taken to the dungeons until I saw fit to attend to them.” 

Bethany nods, eyes rapt. “And how long ago did… _this_ …occur?” she asked. 

Roose reclines next to her, drawing away slightly from her body, still flushed and damp from their exertions. He rests his hand on her belly as though to claim it, for when the time is right, their child will flourish there. It will not wither and die like the rest have. “Several days ago. He required time to consider his mistakes. None of the horses were injured, or even troubled, although that was his intent.”

“And why should he harm them? Being a groom-”

“A groom dismissed for drunkenness, flouting his duties, seeking revenge on his lord.” 

She nods. “He should well have known his place.” She rolls on her side, so that he cannot feel the quickening of her heartbeat, or the way that her breath catches in her throat. “Tell me of how you dealt with him. I should be pleased to know that he was well punished.”

And he does, Roose’s face impassive and his voice a quiet and steady drone as he relates the details of the boy’s chastisement, dragged into the dungeons kicking and screaming, left in a cell to fester and to wait, for his crimes were not such that the Lord of the Dreadfort need interrupt his work to see to his crimes immediately. Roose had gone below after a time, when his charge was reduced to limp rags, eyes red from weeping. While the groom had been foolish, he knew full well what sort of justice was meted out by his liege lord, and the screams that mingled with his cries for mercy prepared him for what was to come. 

Bethany, face impassive, works her hands between her thighs as Roose elaborates, fingers sliding idly between her lower lips, growing slick as she strokes herself. She is slow and she is cautious, relying on the furs that half-cover her body to mask her true intent, concentrating on the words that flow forth and the images that flood her mind. 

_Limbs, bound to a table, straining against leather straps that cut cruelly into young, tender flesh._

_A knife, the edge finely honed, borne by an expert hand, catching the flickering candles that line the walls of the small chamber, gleaming in the shade._

_Blood, a vivid red, a riotous scarlet, starting forth as skin parts, spreading open, dripping down the stained, well-worn wood of the apparatus, to the floor, where it clots among the rushes._

Bethany closes her eyes, finger sliding further inside of herself, thumb on her clit, pressing, pressing harder. 

_Pale meat, exposed to the cold, clammy air, hardly recognizable as something human, pink as the cloak that wraps about her lord husband._

_Tears streaming down the boy’s face, clean streaks in a grimy face, running from eyes to chin._

_A mouth, forced open by agony, crooked and yellowing teeth exposed in a grinning rictus of pain._

She moans when he tells her about that. It is sort, and masked by her free hand, that covers her mouth to hide the slowly spreading smile. It is loud enough though, to trouble her lord husband, to cause Roose’s tale to pause, and to stop. 

“I have upset you, wife.” He begins to rise, extricating himself from the bedclothes. 

“No, my lord,” Bethany says, her voice just beginning to fray with the effort of concealing the grim pleasure that she has taken in the groom’s misfortune. She does not withdraw her hand, but keeps it concealed, keeps it warm. “I am glad of it. Glad that he was dealt with.” 

She does not ask if the boy still lives. Bethany merely concentrates on masking her disappointment when Roose rises from the bed, wrapping himself in a robe. 

“Will you not stay?” she says then, a plaintive note in her voice. She suddenly hates herself for it, for showing such vulnerability. 

He shakes his head. “It is better that you should rest,” Roose says, taking up a candle from her bedstand. “Better for the child.” He smiles then, teeth bared.

She does not flinch, but nods, stilling her features again. It is not until he closes the door securely behind him that she rolls onto her belly, fingers resuming their rhythm. 

She pictures the groom, broken and bloody, when she comes.


End file.
